


Nothing gold can stay

by Aegir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:34:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3520769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegir/pseuds/Aegir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve loves The Lord of the Rings.  Bucky's not so sure.  Bruce has another perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing gold can stay

Steve had loved _The Hobbit_ back when it first came out. He’d been twenty then, wouldn’t have picked up a book marketed to children in the normal way of things, but he’d been so sick that winter of 1938, another run in with rheumatic fever. Bucky’s sister Rebecca had been given the book for her birthday and brought it round, telling them Bucky should read it to Steve and neither of them wanted to hurt Becca’s feelings, so Bucky had read aloud as she’d wanted and of course Steve had loved the story of a small under-rated guy, saving his friends and doing the right thing. Bucky had liked it pretty well too, especially the bits with the dragon and the man who could change into a bear.

Now Bucky’s somewhat back in his own head and working at being a person again he and Steve have started catching up on the past seven decades together.   It turns out Bucky has seen a few things; a darkened movie theatre was a good place for an assassin needing a few hours under the radar, although the films hadn’t meant a lot to him his mind had recorded them and his having seen _Plan 9 from Outer Space_ had deeply impressed Clint for some reason. Steve has seen more, but admits he’d lacked motivation to get through most of the things people kept telling him were musts. Tolkien was different though, it hadn’t taken him long to catch up when he found _The Hobbit_ had a three volume sequel, and the sequel had been turned into three massive movies, and apparently a pretty decent radio series, and he’s eager for Bucky to catch up as well.

According to Steve Bucky needs to see the films of _The Lord of the Rings_ before he sees the films of _The Hobbit_ , and read _The Lord of the Rings_ before he sees the films. Only first he should reread _The Hobbit_ , because part of it was changed in the second edition. That’s OK, though he thinks as he finishes _The Hobbit_ , that he didn’t remember the last part being this sad.

Steve’s volumes of _The Lord of the Rings_ are already well thumbed, which Bucky finds strangely moving. He’s a quick reader and the book’s a page turner once he gets past the irritating singing forest thing. When he finishes though he finds he glad Steve is away doing a charity fundraiser, because Steve would want to know what he thought about it and he doesn’t want to see Steve’s face fall because of a book.

He meets Bruce for coffee next day. It’s nearly a miracle he likes Bruce, considering Bruce is a scientist and Bucky has been paranoid about scientists since 1943, but there’s too much he recognises in Bruce, the broken edges, the anger, the deep control. And Bruce is restful to be around, because he doesn’t mind sitting in silence.  

He also happens to be a complete Tolkien nut with shelves full of stuff even Steve drew the line at. “ _Unfinished Tales_ is as far as I went,” Steve had told Bucky, “but I think Bruce has read everything in print including the academic stuff in old language journals. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s taught himself Gothic.”

It’s easier to talk to Bruce about it than to Steve. “I think Steve finds it hopeful,” he said. “But I don’t. It’s a tale of decline. Everything fades, the best you get is a golden autumn. There’s no redemption, just brave deaths. He was a pessimist, wasn’t he?”

“That’s acute,” Bruce says. “A lot of people complain it’s escapist. Sugar coated.”

“Bet they’re the ones who don’t need an escape.”

“You’re right about him. He was, well pessimist is too simple, perhaps. But a believer in the long defeat.” Bruce stirred his tea with rapid movements. “Has Steve got a copy of _The Silmarillion_?”

“Yes.” He’d memorised Steve’s bookshelf. He memorises everything.

“You’ll find that proves what you’ve been saying. I find it cathartic, though. Or perhaps it just cheers me up to think things could be worse.”

When Steve gets back Bucky manages to deflect them first into a conversation about hobbits and whether they might really exist. After all in a world where aliens got mistaken for gods anything is possible, and that naturally leads to asking if Thor has read _The Lord of the Rings_. (He has. He thinks it’s great.)  They watch _The Lord of the Rings_ films, together. They’re good. They’re depressing, just like the book.

Then when Steve is called in for some political wrangle a couple of weeks later, he takes _The Silmarillion_ off the shelf.

Bruce had warned him it read differently and it does. Bucky doesn’t find it hard going though, the style reminds him of those green-covered books of myths and legends that Steve’s mother had had, that Steve had had to pawn in the end and had never got back. He wonders if there are any second-hand copies to be found.

This book must hold some kind of record for body count. Then there’s torture, massacres, prolonged last stands and a lot of terrifying obsession. Some ice as well. And amputations. Noble people dying stubbornly. In fact bits of it read as though someone had taken a lot of his nightmares, shaken them up a bit, and written them out in remarkably pure prose.

The strange thing was it didn’t make him feel worse. In fact it made him think he might be starting to understand what Bruce meant when he said ‘therapeutic.’ It was like the Shakespeare Steve’s mother had taken them both to, the winter before she died.

He turns out the lights and reads in the dark, because he can, the curtains drawn back, the fierce lights of twenty-first century Brooklyn spread below. Until he gets to ‘Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred…”

And wonders why that makes him feel better. Perhaps it just puts things in perspective, reminds him he isn’t anything special in the scheme of things.

“It’s pure,” he says to Bruce, next time they meet. Pure like the path of a bullet, or the snow in the Arctic. Like the painful dazzle of the first morning light.

“Yes,” Bruce says. “I see what you mean.”

Bucky thinks of the man that created those stories from the horrors of one war, then crafted another kind of tale in the middle of a second. He can see why that man was a pessimist, although it’s not a way he thinks he can live. Perhaps though he can see _The Lord of the Rings_ differently now. A tale of decline unstoppable, but also one about the importance of fighting to save what you can while you can. A message that while the good things will not last forever they may last for long enough.

Steve’s due back tomorrow. Before that maybe he can get on the internet, and see if there really are any second hand copies of that old myths and legends set out there.


End file.
